The Grace of God

A little book on a big subject

by Edward Fudge

THE GRACE OF GOD

     The fullness of God's grace is beyond man's appreciation, comprehension or full knowledge.  The riches of His goodness cannot be expressed or described by human tongue.  Any description can only be approximated, in a weak attempt.  We can admire the beauty of divine grace, but we cannot really explore its depths.  At best we can only stand in awe at what we see, and exclaim with the Apostle Paul:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable his judgements, and his paths beyond tracing out!  Who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been his counselor?  Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever! Amen.  (Romans 11:33-36).

     The preacher who attempts to talk about God's grace must begin, again with Paul, by confessing his own inadequacy for the task (2 Corinthians 3:5).  We are at best clay pots, entrusted with a priceless treasure (2 Corinthians 4:7).  Yet God can enable even clay pots to speak His word and glorify His name.  "Our competency comes from God" (2 Corinthians 3:5).  "For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5).  "...This all-surpassing power is from God, and not from us" (2 Corinthians 4:7).

     Scripture reveals much about the grace of God, and we will profit from studying what it reveals.  It is possible that sermon subjects, like ladies fashions or teenagers music, go in cycles.  Perhaps we have neglected the grace of God - to our own great loss and harm - because those before us, or around us, neglected man's responsibility to obey God.  Whatever the reason, many sermons, conversations and class discussions these days seem to indicate a lack of basic appreciation for this central theme of the New Testament.  Let us give some thought to what Scripture says about God's grace.

TWO FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

     Before we notice what the Bible says about God's grace, we ought to know two fundamental and eternal principles which run throughout the Scriptures.  One has to do with God's nature - the other has to do with man's.

     The first is found in Roamsn 6:23, and is simply this:  "For the wages of sin is death."  In other words, it is an eternal principle which cannot be revoked that God must punish sin.  Any doctrine, any definition, any concept which does not take this into account is wrong from the beginning.  God, by His very nature - because He is God - must both hate and punish sin.  As we study the grace of God, then, we must begin with this clear understanding.  We must deal with this truth throughout.  God hates and punishes sin.  The wages of sin is death.  It has always been so.  It is now.   It always will be.  It is a part of God's own divine nature that this be the case.  Sin cannot be overlooked forever, or winked at indefinitely, or simply swept under the rug.  Because God is God, sin must be punished.

MAN IS A SINNER

     There is a second eternal truth, just as true and just as eternal as the first.  This eternal principle has to do with man's nature, and is stated in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  Man, because he is man, sins.   Every man (except Christ) has sinned.  All men who are living today, who are responsible to God for their behavior, have sinned against God.   When a man commits sin he becomes a sinner.  Since all men have sinned, all men are sinners.  This is an eternal principle of God's Word.  Basic to man for the simple reason that he is man.  All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  Any doctrine of grace, therefore, or any definition, or any discussion, which overlooks this basic concept is also wrong from the very start.  This is a very simple, but absolutely necessary, point from which we must start.

     As we begin to notice God's grace, then, we see two fundamental principles.  Neither can be ignored in our own study.  On the one hand, because God is God, sin must be punished.  On the other hand, because man is man, he has always sinned. How can we reconcile these two truths?   If all men have sinned, and if sin demands death, how can any man be saved?  If God, in His very nature, hates and punishes sin, how can He ever bless, or smile with favor, or "save" ANY HUMAN BEING when ALL have sinned?  The doctrine of God's grace must answer this question.  But it must take into account both the fundamental truths which we have noticed as it does.

 WHAT GRACE IS NOT

     Before we notice what grace IS in the New Testament, we need to see two things that grace is NOT.  Both these errors are popularly taught and believed today.  Sometimes one of them leads to the other.  Sometimes people who have been taught one, and learn better, go so far from that error that they fall into the other extreme which is also erroneous.  Let us see, then, how erroneous ideas about God's grace - and see by the Word of God that neither is true or worthy of our confidence, but that both deserve only to be rejected and warned against.  These two erroneous ideas about grace relate to the two etrnal principles we have already noticed.  One of them fails to take into account what we have seen about God.  The other does not deal with the truth we have observed about man.  These are the two errors of LICENSE and LEGALISM.

 GRACE IS NOT LICENSE

     In the first place, grace is not license!  The doctrine of "license" says, in effect: "Ignore God's law and count on His grace."  This doctrine implies that it does not matter what a man does, whether he ever believes God and attempts to obey HIm or not - that somehow God's grace will make up for all his misconduct and disbelief.  There are those today, and were in New Testament times, who taught LICENSE in the name of grace.  But Scripture plainly teaches that grace is not license.

     License is a perversion of God's grace.  It denies what we have seen already about God: that He hates sin and always punishes it.  This error ignores God's just demand for a sinless life.  It perverts the true grace of God.  It is wrong, and always has been.  License is not grace, because license does not take into account the eternal principle which grows out of God's very nature: God demands a sinless life and always punishes sin with death.

     Let us notice the New Testament evidence of three writers, which proves beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt that LICENSE is not the true grace of God.  Other Scriptures could be found along this same line.  But these will be enough to clearly demonstrate to any honest person that the grace of God is not LICENSE.  It is not any idea of  "do as you please and somehow God will forgive everything."

     The first witness is the Apostle Paul.  When Paul preached on grace, sometimes his critics accused him of preaching license.  He answers this charge very clearly in his espistle to the Romans.  Paul speaks there of God's grace to man in these words:

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.  The law was added so that the trespass might increase.  But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:19-21).

     In these verses Paul magnifies the grace of God.  As much as Adam did for harm to the human race - by bringing sin and death into the world - Christ did so much more for mankind by His own life of obedience to God.  Where sin abounded, Paul, says, grace abounded much more!  Satan could not have the last word!  His greatest evil is overshadowed entirely by God's goodness to man.

     Some of those who heard Paul preach these things responded by accusing him of teaching license.  They said that his teachings would encourage people to go ahead and sin, counting on God's grace to save them.  Paul responded to this charge in the very next verses.

What shall we say, then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means!  We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?   ...For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin ...  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.  (Romans 6:1,2,6,12).

     Grace does not mean LICENSE!  Grace is NOT permission to go on sinning.  Anyone, who says that it is, is wrong - according to the Apostle Paul in these verses.  But this is not all.  The advocates of LICENSE - whether they be indulgent "church members" who want to do as they please, advocates of a so-called "new morality" who say that all the gates are now open for unbridled satisfaction of every desire of body and mind, or libertines who preach as gospel a doctrine of  "do as you please and God will overlook it all somehow" - are all WRONG!  Grace is not license.

      If grace were license, we should expect the Bible to say something like this:  "The grace of God has appeared, teaching us to give in to every desire, to live a riotous, indulgent and self-satisfying life while we have opportunity."  Those who are familiar with Scripture know that it says almost exactly the opposite.  Paul wrote to younger preacher Titus:

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.  It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

     Grace is not license.

     To Paul's testimony we can now add the words of the Apostle Peter.  His second general epistle was written for the express purpose of warning in advance of false teachers who would scoff at Christ's promised coming and would advocate lustful living now (2 Peter 3:1-4).  In response to these evil men, Peter admonishes saints to live holy lives - to be ready for the Lord's return.  Listen to his words:

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?  You ought to live holy and godly lives (2 Peter 3:11).

So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him (v. 14).

Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position (v. 17).

     Peter warns against the doctrine of license.  In direct contrast to it, he admonishes in verse 18:

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To him be glory both now and forever!  Amen.

     Grace is not "do as you please."  It is not license.  It is not divine tolerance of sin.  License denies the fundamental truth of God's holy nature.  It ignores the fact that He punishes sin and that the wages of sin is always death.  No doctirne of the true grace of God can conclude that grace is simply license.  But we have another witness.

     Jude, the half-brother of the Lord, began to write an epistle of happiness about a common salvation.  Because of some who were teaching license, he was forced to change his intention, writing instead against those perverters of grace, urging Christians to beware of them lest they lose their salvation.

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.  For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you.  They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.  (Jude 1:3,4).

     His epistle closes with a warning and an exhortation.

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.  They said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires."  (Jude 1:17,18).

But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.  Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. (Jude 1:20,21).

      Grace is not license.  License is a perversion of grace.  It fails to take into account the fundamental and eternal nature of God.  It ignores the fact that He hates sin, that sin must be punished, and that the wages of sin is death.  Paul warns against license in the name of grace.  Peter warns against the same error.  Jude does the same.  Grace is not "do as you please."  License is a perversion of the true grace of God.  But there is another error which is sometimes preached in the name of grace, an error which is the opposite to license.  That other false extreme is legalism.

 GRACE IS NOT LEGALISM

     Grace is not legalism.  A word should be said about this term, because it is frequently misused and abused.  Legalism does not mean trying to please God.  It is not legalism to seek to do God's will as accurately and exactly as possible.  Attempting to serve God as strictly as one can does not make a man a legalist.  Such a man might be a legalist, or he might not be.  But his desire or attempt to please God precisely is not the determining factor.

     Legalism (to put it very briefly) is not law-keeping, but law-depending.  It is not the idea of doing the law but of trusting in one's performance for salvation.  Legalism is the idea that man will be saved because he has a record of obedience that is pleasing to God.  Just as license ignores and fails to reckon with the fact that God, by nature, hates and punishes sin, so legalism ignores and fails to reckon with the fact that man, by nature, is a sinner.  If the Gentiles were especially prone to the error of license, the Jews seem to have been especially prone to the other error of legalism.

      According to those who have studied Jewish thought of the first century, the ordinary rabbi of Jesus' day would have said that he strongly believed in the grace of God.  But he would have described it something like this.  God's grace, the rabbi might have said, means that He gave us His Law.  Of all nations on earth, we Jews alone were given this Law.  If we keep it, God will bless us.  If we do not, He will punish us.  But we have God's grace because we have His Law.

     What this rabbi would have failed to consider - and what many today fail to see as well - is that neither the Jew then nor the man today ever does keep God's law perfectly.  Legalism says in effect, "Keep the rules perfectly and be saved; good luck!"   But legalism fails to deal with the eternal principle that man, by nature, does NOT keep the rules perfectly!  He is a sinner.  He always has been.  He is now.  He always will be.  Grace is not simply God giving us His laws and saying, "Keep the rules and be saved - good luck!"  Just as LICENSE ignores the nature of GOD, so THIS doctrine ignores the nature of MAN.  No man could EVER be saved by that kind of "grace."  No man has ever kept the rules perfectly - either before he became a Christian or after - except Jesus Christ.  Legalism FRUSTRATES the true grace of God and ignores the nature of MAN.

     The rabbi might respond to what I have just said by saying, "Oh, I realize that we do not keep all the rules, and that we do not keep the rules perfectly.  But God's grace will surely overlook our shortcomings.  For we do keep the IMPORTANT rules - and just look at the other nations of the world!"   Some today would say about the same thing.  In reality, however, this statement begs the question.  It misses the whole point.

     We are agreed that man has not kept the rules right.  But if grace is not more than legalism ("Here are the rules; keep them and be saved - good luck!"), no man can be saved.  For no man, except Jesus Christ, has kept the rules perfectly - which is but another way of saying that we have not "kept" them at all.  And if salvation is by LAW, thre is no room for grace.  A man is saved because HE DESERVES IT or he is saved ALTHOUGH HE DOES NOT.  He either EARNS salvation or it is GIVEN to him.

     Legalism says that man will be saved because he has kept the rules - because he has earned it - that would be too obviously wrong.  It makes excuses for his shortcomings, it gives rationalization, it talks all around the matter.  It picks out certain rules and says that they are, the IMPORTANT ones - it  makes all kinds of maneuvers.  But in the end legalism says to man; "Here are the rules; keep them and be saved - good luck!"  Grace is not legalism.  Legalism ignores the true nature of man.  No man can be saved by keeping the rules because no man does that.  The grace of God is something else.

     Scripture warns against LEGALISM as strongly and clearly as it warns against LICENSE.  When certain Judean Christians went to the young church in Antioch and began to teach salvation on the basis of law-keeping (in that instance, the Law of Moses), the apostles and elders met together in Jerusalem to settle the matter.  It was almost inevitable that a showdown would come in the early church on this matter.

     Peter was one spokesman in the Jerusalem assembly.  His answer to the legalist brought in the very eternal truth we have already been talking about: the nature of man - the fact that he is a sinner, that he has never kept the rules perfectly and that any hope of salvation on the basis of his own performance is doomed from the very start.

Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?  No!  We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.  (Acts 15:10,11).

     The legalizers had said that salvation depended on man's keeping the Law (Acts 15:1).  Peter, speaking for the Holy Spirit, said that salvation - for Jew or Gentile - depended instead on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.  God had cleansed the hearts of both Jewish and Gentile Christians by faith.  As salvation had begun on this basis, it would continue on the same basis.  To bind on Gentile Christians the burden of law-keeping as a BASIS for their acceptance by God was to tempt God and to demand the IMPOSSIBLE from the saints.  Our fathers could not do it, Peter said.  We could not do it.  And we cannot expect the Gentile Christians to do it either.  Man must look to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ for his salvation - not expect to find it by his own perfect performance or record of law-keeping.

     Though Peter had stood firm on this occasion, even he was to play the hypocrite under different circumstances because of the pressures of party-men from Jerusalem.  At Antioch, Peter was eating with the Gentile saints - accepting them fully as brethren in the Lord, worthy of sharing in the common life.  But when certain men came down from Jerusalem, Peter was intimidated by their presence and did not continue to eat with the non-Jewish Christians.   This was not merely racial discrimination in a social sense (though it was also that, and was wrong), but was based on the thinking of some Jews that the Gentiles were not really accepted by God because they did not keep the Law of Moses.

     Paul rebuked Peter to his face for this, and said that he was not walking according to the truth of the gospel (Galatians 2:11-14).  In writing to the Galatians, Paul relates some of his remarks to Peter on that occasion.

We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.  So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified (Galatians 2:15-16).

     Salvation cannot come by law-keeping.  Paul says, "by observing the law no one will be justified."   It is not that law is bad - the Law of Moses was GOD'S law.  It was holy and just and good.  It was perfect for its purpose.  But the Law of Moses could not SAVE for the same reason that no list of rules can save.  Rules can only tell WHAT GOD WANTS from man.  For man to be saved on the basis of rules (or law-keeping), he must keep them all and keep them perfectly.  And that is just what man has always failed to do.

     What Paul says in the verse we noticed had special reference to the Law of Moses.  Peter's remarks in Acts 15 had special reference to the Law of Moses, too.  But the principle is the same with any law: man cannot be saved on the basis of law-keeping because he never does keep the law perfectly.   It is an eternal principle that man, because he is man, sins.  God does not make him sin.   God did not create him so that he had to sin.  But however much we might say along that line, it is still an eternal principle, stated in God's word and verified by all human experience, that man is a sinner, and that even when he sincerely tries he does not do what God wants him to do.  Paul talks about this very problem in Romans, chapter seven.  Legalism is not grace.  God does NOT simply give a list of rules in the New Testament and say: "Here are the rules.  Keep them and be saved.  Good luck!"

     Scripture is very plain along this line.  The law - any law - is weak through the flesh (see Romans 8:3).  That is no one ever keeps it perfectly, and therefore no one can ever be saved by the law of Moses.  The weakness of the Old Testament was not in the Law of Moses.  It was ordained by angels and given by God Himself (Galatians 3:19).  Yet Paul goes on to say in that same passage:

For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteouness would certainly have come by the law.  But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe (Galatians 3:21-22).

     No, these words do not apply just to the Law of Moses.  If ANY law could have given life, Paul says, surely the Law of Moses could.  But even it could not.  The law was not bad - the people were.  It is impossible - because of the way man himself is and has always been - for law to save.  God's grace is not just giving a law which man can keep and be saved.  If that is all the New Testament brings it is not better than the Old.  Man still sins.  Sinners must die.  Law cannot save.  If a law could have been given, Paul says, which could give life, surely it would have been the Law of Moses.  But - he continues - Scripture has shut up all mankind under the guilt of sin instead.  Law cannot save.

      Grace is not LICENSE.  License says "do as you please and God will overlook it."  That perverts the grace of God.  It ignores the fundamental fact of God's nature, that He is Holy and always punishes sin with death.  Grace is not LEGALISM.  Legalism says "here are the rules; keep them and be saved - good luck!"  Legalism frustrates the true grace of God.  It ignores the fundamental fact of man's nature, that he is weak in the flesh and always sins.  He never keeps the rules perfectly.

     How, then, is man to be saved?  How can we harmonize God's holy nature on the one hand, with man's weakness on the other - and still have anyone enjoy the favor of God?  If grace is not LICENSE, if it is not LEGALISM, what is it?  Scripture answers this question very clearly, and we will turn to that answer now.

WHAT GRACE IS

     The true grace of God is God's work in His Son Jesus Christ.  We have an indication of this in John 1:17.

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

     This does not mean that there was no grace under Moses, or that there was no truth under Moses.  Nor does it mean that there is no law under Jesus Christ.  We have already seen that grace is not license.  Paul says that he was "not without law to God, but under the law to Christ" (1 Corinthians 9:21).  Yet in some way, John is contrasting law - as characteristic of the Old system - to grace - as characeristic of Jesus Christ.  What is God's true grace?  It came by Jesus Christ.  In some sense, it was peculiar to Him and His work.  Grace will be found in relation to the Son of God Himself - the Son who became flesh and dwelt among us.  He was full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

     Peter says that it was prophesied in advance that Christ would bring this grace to man, and that this grace would be man's salvation.

Concerning this SALVATION, the PROPHETS who spoke of THE GRACE THAT WAS TO COME TO YOU, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he PREDICTED the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow (I Peter 1:11).

     God's true grace would come by Jesus Christ.  The prophets had an inkling of this, but did not see it clearly.  John says that grace did come by Jesus Christ, who was God in human flesh.  Peter says that the Spirit of Christ testified to the prophets of someone, at some time, who would bring grace to God's people - grace that would result in their salvation, or right standing with God.  We know, looking back, that they spoke of Christ.  They did not know the details but "searched intently and with the greatest care" as to who this "coming one" was and when he would come.

JESUS BECAME A MAN

     How did God's grace involve Christ?  What was involved in God's grace?  It began when Jesus left His pre-incarnate state to become a man.  Paul says:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).

     Grace began when Jesus left heaven - with all its riches - to become a man.  He became poor FOR OUR SAKES, that we might be made RICH.  Grace means, in the first place, that Jesus became a man.  He became one of us.  He was subject to the Law, just as all men were who lived when He did in the flesh - that is all Jews.  He came for the purpose of keeping the will of God perfectly in a human body - and for that reason He was given a body in the first place.

 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased.  Then I said, 'Here I am - it is written about me in the scroll - I have come todo you will, O God' (Hebrews 10:5-7)

     God had never wanted animal sacrifices or sin offerings above all else.  He had simply wanted man to carry out His will!  But man had always failed to do God's will (because that is what we have seen to be the universal state of man), and had to offer animal sacrifices for sin instead.  Jesus came, not to offer more sacrifices, but to do what God had always wanted but what no man had never yet done: TO DO THE WILL OF GOD!  As a MAN, He would do what OTHER MEN had not.  God gave Him a body for that purpose.  He came to do the will of God.  Not only that, He DID the will of God perfectly in His human body.  And then He offered that body for OUR sins.

We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all ... because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Hebrews 10:10,14).

     The grace of God means - first - that Jesus became a man.  He was one of us.  As a man he kept God's will perfectly.  Then He offered His body to God - He presented to God what He had always wanted - a human life perfectly in accord with His will for man.  Grace means, in the second place, that Jesus died for sins - though He himself had none.

JESUS SWAPPED PLACES WITH US

     In dying when He had no sin, Jesus was paying the price for OUR sins - and those of all the world!  Remember our two eternal principles:  God demands death for sin; man is always a sinner.

     Here we see how they are reconciled for the salvation of man.  Jesus died for our sins!  HE TOOK OUR PLACE.  Sin is not overlooked - a monumental price is paid for it - the perfect life of the Son of God!  The only man who ever did what God wanted died for those who never had.  Here is the grace of God!  It is not a cheap grace - it cost the life of the Son of God.  He died in our place.

     Paul tells us the same thing in 2 Corinthians chapter five:

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.  And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation ... God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain (2 Corinthians 5:19 - 6:1).

     He not only took OUR place; He gave us HIS.  He was made SIN for us, that we might be made THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD in Him.  The grace of God is that Jesus became a man - a representative man - took our place, then died for our sins and lived a perfect life for which we are given (in HIm) the reward.

     Peter tells us this in other words:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24).

     Jesus did not stay in the grave.  God raised Him from the dead - and that, too, was for our sake!

The words "it was credited to him {Abraham}" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness - for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.  Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice int he hope of the glory of God (Romans 4:23-5:2).

     Jesus died for our sins.  He was raised again for our justification.  He died to pay the price of sin - not His, but ours.  He was raised again, as a demonstration and eternal proof that God has accepted the perfect life HE had lived in the flesh - but He did that for our sake, too!  He was raised again for OUR justification.  Because Jesus rose from the dead, we know that God accepted His life as worthy of blessing.  But because we are in Him.  God blesses us with Him, though our own lives are worthy of punishment and not blessing.

      Here is the grace of God!  It is a great swap-out!  It comes through Jesus Christ.  The eternal Son of God became a man - made in the likeness of man - came to be like sinful flesh - He was actually and really one of us, though He was still deity.  But He did no sin.  Instead He did the will of God perfectly in His human body.  Because He did obey God perfectly, which none of us has ever done, and then died, which He should not have had to do by right - God counted His death as full punishment and on the merit of HIS perfect life.

     Here is the grace of God.  And here is why JESUS CHRIST is the very heart and soul and center and circumference of the New Testament.  He is the author and finisher of our faith.  He is the alpha and the omega.  He is the beginning and the end.  He is the first and the last.  He is our peace, our justification, our holiness.  We owe everything to Him.

GRACE IS RECEIVED BY TRUE FAITH

     Paul says in Romans, Chapter five, tht we are justified by faith (v.1).  The basis on which God blesses us in Christ is our faith.  We have peace with God THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.  Only in Him can man be saved.  Only in Christ can the eternal truth of God's nature be harmonized with the eternal truth of man's - only in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made flesh for our sakes, is sin punished and, at the same time, man saved.

     Salvation is by grace.  But this grace is found in Jesus Christ.  We are privileged to reach out and take this grace by faith.  "We have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand"  (Romans 5:2).  If we picture grace as the room of God's favor - bestowed on sinners because of God's righteousness in Christ - then faith is the door into that room!  "We have gained access by faith into this grace."

     God accepts us because of our faith in Christ.  Faith means accepting testimony as fact (John 20:24-31).  It means seeing the unseen, and, because of God's Word, believing it to be true (Hebrews 11:1).  Faith means trusting someone - entrusting oneself to another in total and absolute confidence (2 Timothy 1:12).  Faith means that one will seek to please the one in whom his faith is placed - James, chapter two, makes that very clear.

     But in the final analysis, God accepts us because of Christ's work on our behalf, and we claim that grace by accepting it as fact, trusting it as sufficient, and throwing ourselves on it in total and eternal abandon, to be servants of righteousness and true holiness in Christ.  We do not earn God's favor.  We cannot ever please Him enough to be given His blessings.  We certainly could never pay for our own sins and be saved.  But in Christ God has brought together the justice that is His nature and the weakness that is man's:  Christ became a man and took man's place.

     The weakness of the flesh is accounted for in the grace of God because salvation does not depend on our weak flesh - Jesus has earned it for us already!  God's holiness is accounted for in the grace of God because sin is punished - by the death of His sinless Son!  And so Paul can say to the Ephesian Christians:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8,9).

     License perverts grace, and does not satisfy God's requirement of perfect obedience to His will.

They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality (Jude 4)

     Legalism thwarts and frustrates God's grace, and does not provide for the weakness of man.

A man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ...for by observing the law no one will be justified...I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing (Galatians 2:16, 21).

     The true grace of God is found in the representative life of Jesus Christ.  He took our place in pleasing God in a human body, and He took our place in dying for our sins.  Salvation by grace - true grace in Jesus Christ - reckons with the holiness of God and the weakness of man.  In Christ there is satisfaction for God and provision for sinful man.  We are accepted by God - in Christ (Ephesians 1:7).

ONE WITH CHRIST

      We are saved because we are one with Christ - and He has both offered a perfect life and died for our sins.  We are one with Christ on the basis of faith, in the beginning and throughout life.  True faith will seek to please Him.  Yet it is not legalism.  There is a vast difference between law-keeping and law-depending.  We will want to do God's will, yet we never will trust in our own performance for our salvation.  We glory only in the cross of Christ.

     Any system, any concept of Christianity, and "ism," any movement, which makes salvation dependent on man's own ability to please God destroys and invalidates the work of Christ.  If man is able to be saved because of his own merit then Christ died in vain.  If keeping the rules could save a man, Christ could have stayed in heaven - God's people have possessed perfect rules for centuries.  The weakness of the Old Testament was the weakness of man.  That is the same weakness of any system which depends on man.

     It is one thing to seek God's will in a matter because we love Him and want to please Him.  It is another thing altogether to approach that same matter with the idea that our salvation depends on our own good performance and merit.  This attitude is legalism, and will always lead to pride (insofar as we are successful) or to despair and hopelessness (insofar as we fail).

     It is right and proper to seek to please God as thoroughly and exactly and precisely as possible.  Any true believer will want to do that, and anyone who does not want to do that is not a true believer.  But it is a far different matter to create a system, to formulate a creed, or to devise an elaborate set of rules, and then DEPEND ON OUR OWN KEEPING OF THOSE THINGS FOR OUR SALVATION.

     Let us seek to please God.  That is what true faith will always do.  Let us ask Him for forgiveness when we fall.  That is what true faith will always do.  Let us rejoice in the work of Christ on our behalf.  Let us glory in the cross of Christ.  Let us say - first, last, and always - "God, be merciful to me a sinner!"  And - in Christ - we know that He always will!

I have written you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God.  Stand fast in it...Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

A PERSONAL QUESTION

     Are YOU "in Christ Jesus"?   Have YOU been joined to Him by faith - faith in the working of God who raised Him from the dead (Colossians 2:12)?   If you do believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son; if you do trust His perfect life and atoning death for your salvation; if you do rely on Him and intend to please Him as long as you live and as best you are able in all things - then you will want to be "buried with Him in baptism" and "raised with Him" to "newness of life" (Romans 6:3-5).  You will want to be baptized "into Christ" and "put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27).  And then, IN CHRIST, one spirit with Him, you will continue to walk by the same faith - trusting, relying, and obeying - living in the TRUE GRACE OF GOD!